


In Her Dreams

by artisticPsychologist



Category: Portal (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Implied Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-06 20:34:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16839934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artisticPsychologist/pseuds/artisticPsychologist
Summary: I don't remember what this is about very much.  I'm backing it up from tumblr.  Enjoy!





	1. Chapter 1

_In her dreams, she opened the main door of the Aperture Science building and just… walked out. Like it was the most normal thing in the world. A tall man wearing an orange Aperture shirt and black jeans awaited her. He was quite handsome, even if his hair was mussed and his frame was thin and lanky._

_In his left hand was a red spray-paint can, and he extended his right hand for her to take. She whispered to him._

_“You must be him… you don’t know how good it is to finally meet you….”_

_Just as her fingers brushed against his palm, touching the kind of human warmth she hadn’t known in an incalculable amount of time-_

Chell awoke. She’d been taking an impromptu nap in an elevator shaft, just after a particularly nasty brush with deadly lasers. The adrenal vapor in the air worked wonders on her physical abilities, but there were times when even _it_ couldn’t fix her wounds well enough.

Chell pulled up the leg of her jumpsuit. There was still a nasty mark there, but at least the burn had cauterized itself. It would be gone within the week, if the rate at which other wounds she’d received had healed was any indication.

She sighed. Another dream about _him_. She needed to learn to stay awake more often, or else she’d end up driving herself mad with these fantasies.

She didn’t even know what _he_ looked like, save for the fact that he was surely sick and frail from having eaten nothing but Aperture brand canned beans all these years. She did know, however, that he was kind. Despite his almost certain frailty he had managed to plot out an escape route through the maintenance shafts of the facility, and had marked it carefully with red arrows and signs. He placed helpful markings that told her where it was best to place a portal. And it hadn’t taken her too long to figure out that his eternal writings of “Help” in red spray paint had not, in fact, meant that he _needed_ help, but rather that one could _find_ help written in red.

He also left behind little dens, and though they had long since been drained of food and water, they had allowed Chell some brief moments of respite. She could lie down and sleep in them, surrounded by the disturbing yet equally comforting scrawlings of her predecessor. The first one she’d found had very literally saved her life. It was during her first experience with turrets, and she was having a rough time getting past a particularly nasty pair of them. She was wounded and scared when she’d found a panel propped open with two storage cubes. She crawled in, discovering an area out of range of the bullets. She stayed there for hours at a time, nursing her wounds, returning to the den whenever she became stuck or frightened in that chamber. It was the beginning of Chell’s love affair with the mysterious man, as well as her hatred and aversion of turrets.

She hadn’t known another human save for him since her earliest memory. It was only natural that she would want to touch and be touched by him. There wasn’t even anything sexual about it, she was just… lonely.

Oh, what she wouldn’t _give_ to just have another moment to herself! To lie down for a minute or two in a dark corner of the facility where GLaDOS couldn’t watch her, to fashion a makeshift bed out of vines or something, and to…

… to do what? To sleep? She had had quite _enough_ sleep for the time being. Perhaps enough for the rest of her _life._ If not sleep, then what? Rest? Maybe. Rest sounded rather nice, but she’d much rather rest _after_ escaping the facility.

What, then?

 _… I know **exactly** what I want to do, _she thought to herself. _I just want a little “alone time”! I want to lie down on something soft and do the one thing I haven’t had the luxury to do since before I could remember, to… well, you know._

Chell shook her head. _This is all his fault,_ she thought.

Chell wanted to cry out, to kick the wall, but something in her kept her from doing so. It was like this whenever she suspected GLaDOS of listening in on her. She would stubbornly clam up. No matter how much she wanted to chime in with a sarcastic quip, she instantly knew that it would do her no good. It was not so much an inability to speak, but rather, a forced _refusal_ to do so.

There was nothing for it. She’d just have to soldier on and hope she’d meet _him_ along the way.

As she exited the elevator, she found herself met with another laser-based test chamber. The discouragement beam, however, was not the _first_ thing that met her eye. Instead, she stared down in utter terror as a very _different_ kind of laser pointed itself menacingly across her path.

It was a sight she knew all too well. It was something that could only come from the optic of a sentry turret.

The little bastard had thought to protect itself behind a grate in the wall, eh? It thought it could _hide_ from her wrath?!

_You picked the **wrong** day to try and fuck with **Chell!**_

She sprung forward, the braces on her boots helping to propel her across the hallway as quickly as they could. Against all instinct, she hugged the grated wall so as to reduce the time spent in the turret’s line of fire.

“I see you,” said its sickeningly sweet voice, sending a chill up her spine.

**Bang.**

She dove at the mechanical sound, landing on the floor as a bullet grazed the skin of her right forearm, just above the portal gun.

She clutched at her arm, hugging the pained appendage for a moment before daring to look down. There was a chip in the plastic of the gun, and a moderately deep gash on her arm. The wound was nasty, but she had avoided the horrible process of having to remove the bullet on her own. A process she was already terribly familiar with.

The pain quickly subsided as the vapors in the air worked their magic. She set down the portal gun and removed the bandaging that she wore to cushion her trigger arm against the heavy weight of the device. She rewound it tightly, a little lower this time, to help stop the bleeding. She picked the gun back up and set to work on the test chamber. Chell was angry, inexorably angry, angrier than she’d been in a long time. She was hurt and scared, and wanted _revenge._

Nobody, but _nobody_ did something like this to her and got away with it.

She stomped heavily on the super-colliding super-button that sat in the center of the room, and a laser beam sputtered to life. A portal here, a portal there, and it quickly dispatched three turrets aiming their guides at her menacingly through a protective wall of glass. They burst into flames and exploded one after the other with horrible screams, earning a satisfied chuckle from Chell. The next four turrets were easy enough to get at, all she needed was two cubes, and she had been provided them. One she set on the button, keeping the laser on, and carefully aimed at them with a redirection cube. The turrets were helpless before her, silently cowering behind glass walls as she stared them right in the optics. She drew the laser in a slow arc at them, each one of the awful things catching fire and shattering with a heavy, pleasing ‘boom’.

But Chell wasn’t done yet.

No, she’d figured out a way to take out the turret hiding behind the grate. By repositioning the portals in the room, she would be able to use the cube to aim at the thing. Unfortunately, with no glass walls to protect her this time, she would have to move quickly and precisely to avoid getting shot at again.

She picked up the cube, aiming it forward preemptively.

And she ran at the laser, jumping and twisting mid-air in order to get the best vantage on her robotic enemy.

 _Each turret has a latency period of about a half a second between the time that it sees you and the time that it shoots. They seem to use this brief pause to aim properly, though more in-depth study is required to fully prove or disprove this theory,_ she found her scientific brain reciting. She herself had written those lines in her mind, from her own findings, back when turrets would gladly shoot at her through glass, leaving spidery cracks as the shells made impact with the seemingly bulletproof protection.

That half-second was all she needed to let the laser beam do its work. For a moment, Chell wondered if the turret would try to fire at her as it burned, much in the way they would fire blindly and wildly after being knocked over. One had to watch out for that, and knock them over carefully whenever possible. Chell learned that the hard way.

But her fears were unfounded, the turret gave a frightened “It _burns!_ ” and did not shoot. It exploded shortly after, blowing the grate right off the wall and into the hallway. Chell was about to orient the laser back in the correct position and leave the room when she noticed that there was something inside the now-opened hole in the wall. She crouched down, peering into the dim light within. The opening seemed to lead to the maintenance shaft, but how could she be certain it was safe to go inside?

A flash of white caught her eye instinctively. She immediately turned to look at it, and her face brightened immediately with recognition.

It was an empty can of beans.

She slipped inside the hole and picked up the can, sitting down against the wall. She ran her finger along the inside of the metal container, careful not to cut herself on its sharp edge. Her finger came back wet with a sticky red substance. It must have been some of the juice the beans had been preserved in. She wiped her hand off on her jumpsuit and sniffed the inside of the can. The smell of food filled her senses and made her mouth water. She hadn’t eaten in ages… and yet, for some reason, she didn’t quite feel hungry. At least, the hunger hadn’t made her weak.

Adrenal vapor worked wonders, didn’t it?

She snapped back to attention. This was no time to be praising the cruel efficiency of GLaDOS’s recycled air system. The fact that the inside of the can smelled _good_ to her meant that its contents had been eaten fairly recently. The residue left behind hadn’t had a chance to spoil. That meant that _he_ had been here recently.

It was at that moment of realization that a strange sound came from further in the maintenance shaft. It caught her attention, startling her and causing Chell to leap upwards, hitting her head on the low ceiling above with a painful <i> _clang </i>._

As she rubbed her aching head, she was a tad disappointed that even after having been concealed in the hidden den, she still could not bring herself to choke out even a pained whimper. But it wasn’t too surprising, because all around her was an otherworldly sound.

It was like something mechanical was… making music. She heard the metallic whirr of robotic gyrations, and quietly stalked her way further into the den. As the sounds grew louder, she saw a bright light coming from behind a glass plate on the floor. Gazing down, she gasped.

Turrets. Four of them. Tucked in an alcove below her, side-by-side. All of them moving the plates on their sides like the ends of accordions. One was even swinging them back and forth rhythmically, as though it were dancing.

The song was strange, and slightly sad. As she tilted her head to see further into the area below her, she saw a second alcove to her left. A fifth turret, larger and fatter than any other she’d seen before, sat motionless across from the more musical ones. Almost like a conductor.

She hoped never to have to meet a large one like that in the test chambers. It looked bottom-heavy, which meant she probably couldn’t tip it over very easily. She thanked… well, nobody, that she was protected from it. Admittedly she’d never been very religious. Her experiences with omnipotent things usually ended very badly. But she could thank her luck, at least. It had gotten her this far, after all.

She searched the entire den top to bottom, pushing rusted debris out of her way, but didn’t find any trace of _him_ or where he’d gone. She was once again faced with crushing disappointment, and the sad sound of the musical turrets did nothing to ease her heavy heart.

She sat down, propping herself up against a wall adjacent to one of his paintings. Anybody else would have found the depiction of a pile of dead scientists lying before GLaDOS unnerving. But, of course, Chell wasn’t like anybody else. She was comforted by the knowledge that he had been here not long ago, and might come back here again, and no amount of disturbing artwork would ever change that. Licking absentmindedly at gooey leftover contents of the bean can, she closed her eyes and listened to the sweetly depressing music of the turrets, almost wishing she hadn’t so callously murdered their brethren in cold blood just minutes before. Though that didn’t matter now.

She was too busy to worry over it, rapt with fact that this was the same music _he_ had heard, not so long ago. She glanced at the pictures he’d painted to this music.

 _His artwork has gotten so much better since the first time I saw it…,_ she thought to herself.

 ** _He_** _made this,_ she smiled. Her thoughts drifted back to that first big chamber, the one with her massive portrait in it. _I love him and I finally know that he loves me too, because he made this,_ she thought, moving over towards the graffiti to run her fingers gently over the now-dried paint. She felt tears well up in her eyes. _He knows I exist. He’s painting these so I can see them. And if I wait here long enough… I’ll get to see **him** , too._ She placed her forehead on the cool surface of the concrete and closed her eyes.

And that was when she heard it.

It was a hushed mumbling coming from behind the portrait.

_… it’s **him,**_ she thought. _I can hear him! He’s alive, and I can hear him!_

… wait. Something was off about his voice. She couldn’t understand a single word, and the voice sounded frantic and upset. She strained her ears to make out even a single word.

 _… damn them…,_ she began to think, each time she heard a word or phrase she could place. _… didn’t want to… made me… you didn’t… got me too… is dead… dead… delicious? … is gone… damn them. Help me?_

She shook her head. His speech had devolved into a series of moans and cries. Clearly there was nothing coherent to his rantings. It didn’t even really sound like a human was speaking. She desperately tried to call out to him, to tell him to calm down and that everything was all right, but she couldn’t squeak out a sound.

Chell started to sob quietly, beating her forehead gently against the panel. This was so important! What the hell was she so afraid of that it was keeping her from comforting the only man she’d ever loved?!

The backs of her hands pawed at her eyes, wiping away the tears. Resting her head against the panel, she listened closely to his voice, however much it hurt to hear such a deranged and fearful sound. Not about to pass up a chance to at least learn something about him, she was determined to burn his voice into her brain. It cracked occasionally with the fervor of his frantic wailing, but otherwise…. she hated to think it, but she admitted that it was a very average voice. It wasn’t in a particularly high or low register, and she was certain that if he spoke normally he would sound like any other person. Nonetheless, it had an odd quality to it. A unique wavelength, or something. She wasn’t sure if that came from the way he strangled every distressed word, or if it was an actual feature of his speech. Chell focused on this quality nonetheless.


	2. Chapter 2

Doug sat, tired, in a secretive area behind a panel in one of his dens. He couldn’t stand to hear the turrets singing any more, and had discovered an area out of range of their music. He caressed a little white china mug in his hands, one he’d been using for water for quite some time now, just feeling the immense weight that such a tiny object could carry. He ran his fingers gently over the words that had been painted on it in black embossing, tears welling up in his eyes at the simple message.  
  
 **“Number One Dad”**  
  
Doug never had children. He’d never really wanted one. Schizophrenia seemed to have a genetic link, after all, and he dared not risk passing on his madness to an innocent child. But he knew that a lot of scientists at Aperture _had_ had families, and that many of those families had been utterly destroyed the day GLaDOS had gone online.  
  
Bring your Daughter to Work Day.  
  
He shuddered at the memory. So many tiny bodies, so many innocent children had been snuffed out that day.  
  
But it was more than that. This particular mug, he noted, had once belonged to someone he knew. Long ago the name had escaped him, it was too much trouble to keep track of old names after all. But he could recall speaking to the man once, a long, long time ago.  
  
 _“What’s that you’ve got there, Doctor? Is that a new coffee cup?” Doug asked, pouring a cup of his own into an Aperture Laboratories mug.  
  
“Oh, this? Yeah. My little girl got it for me for Father’s Day,” the man chuckled, looking it over lovingly.  
  
“Really? I didn’t even know you had a daughter,” Doug observed. "I didn’t even know you were married.“  
  
"Well… I’m not, actually,” he mumbled. "My girl’s adopted.“  
  
"Oh, I didn’t know. Nothing wrong with that, though, right?” Doug said nonchalantly, taking a sip from his cup.  
  
“Naw, nothing wrong with that! Nothing at all!” the man smiled a broad smile.  
  
“What’s she like?” Doug wondered. He didn’t really want to strike up this particular conversation, but the man seemed happy, so he’d pursued it.  
  
“Aww, she’s a regular gem. She’s coming to Bring your Daughter to Work Day, so you can see for yourself,” the man smiled.  
  
“… oh,” Doug’s spirits fell. "… you know, that’s really probably not the best idea.“  
  
"Why not? She’s a good kid, it’s not like she’s going to mess up anything,” the man said defensively.  
  
“Oh, it’s got nothing to do with her being a bad kid or not. I’m sure she’s perfectly wonderful. It’s just…,” he faltered. "… that’s the day they’ve decided to activate GLaDOS.“  
  
"Yeah, that. I dunno, might actually be _cool. _My little girl_ loves _stuff like that. She gets that from me.”  
  
“But you don’t understand! This… this_ thing _the lab boys have created, it’s not_ ready _yet! It… it keeps trying to kill us all,” he tried to explain.  
  
The man eyed Doug suspiciously. "… what’d you say your name was again?“  
  
”… Rattmann. Doug Rattmann,“ he replied quietly.  
  
”… oh,“ the man said coldly. "You’re the _paranoid _guy.”  
  
The man took his mug and stood up, making his way towards the door.  
  
“W-wait! Yes, I’ve got paranoid schizophrenia, but I’m on medication-” Doug’s plea was silenced as the man shut the door behind him._  
  
“… what a fool he’d been,” Doug mumbled. "Nobody ever listened to me. And now it’s too late….“  
  
He pounded his fist into the metal catwalk at his feet.  
  
” _Damn_ them!“ he cried out.  
  
"Huh… huuhhh…,” he strained to fight the words he knew were coming to his lips. "H- _Help_ me, Mister Johnson!! I didn't _want_ to do it! They _made_ me! I never wanted to work on that… that _monster_!“  
  
He cried, holding his head in his hands, trying to stop the seemingly endless flow of words that escaped his lips. He wasn’t even certain what half the things he was babbling about were. All he could think about was that day, that fateful day when nobody had listened to him. Nobody heard his pleas for safety, nobody had let him beg for the computer’s startup to be put off for just another day. All he could think of now were the bodies. All the bodies. Man, woman, child….  
  
… pounding? Someone could be heard behind the panel, the pounding of their feet echoing loudly through the hidden chamber. Doug stopped for a moment to listen, but he didn’t even care any more. It was just another hallucination, he told himself. There was no one alive in the facility. Not a soul. He continued his babbling.  
  
After a while, the footsteps seemed to cease. But several minutes passed, and he heard the footsteps begin again. Now there was shuffling. Someone was sitting down against the panel. He shook his head wearily.  
  
 _Paranoid schizophrenia is characterized by auditory hallucinations and delusions of persecution,_ he thought to himself. _There’s no one in there. There’s no one in my den._  
  
Then he heard… breathing? Doug recognized the sound as clearly feminine in origin. He forced himself to be quiet. Even the voices in his head had ceased, and his own mouth was still.  
  
  
His babbling ceased. Chell lifted her head, not quite understanding what was going on. Why had he stopped? Had he simply tired himself out, or….  
  
… or was something much, much worse going on behind that painting?  
  
She tapped on the concrete, lightly at first, but quickly she became upset and began beating the wall with her fists. She desperately tried to remember Morse Code, but she suspected that she’d never learned it.  
  
  
Doug leapt to his feet. Now the hallucination was knocking on the wall?!  
  
… and rather frantically at that.  
  
Perhaps… perhaps it couldn’t hurt to just take a peek at whatever was making that racket?  
  
He crouched low, and pushed the panel forward slowly, carefully, so as not to alert anyone to his presence, and peered around the side.  
  
This ploy to keep himself hidden, of course, didn’t work. Chell’s gaze snapped to him immediately.  
  
Doug’s eyes went wide. "… Chell? Is that really you?” he wondered quietly.  
  
  
Chell didn’t quite know how to respond. She opted for staring at him in disbelief.  
  
This was not, of course, the correct response.  
  
Doug shook his head, rubbed his eyes, and ducked back behind the panel.  
  
“W-wait!” she choked, her voice raw and scratchy from thirst and disuse.  
  
He didn’t wait. What was the point in waiting to hear what she had to say? It was just another illusion. There was no reason to chase mirages of Chell when he _knew_ her to be elsewhere, sleeping eternity away.  
  
Chell was dumbfounded. She furrowed her brow, and reached between the panels to snatch up his lab coat, effectively holding him back.  
  
“Now you wait just a minute!” she growled, voice still hurting when she used it.  
  
Doug’s entire body locked up and he stood stock still. No. The… the coat must have gotten caught on the panel. That was the only logical explanation. That… that _had_ to be it.  
  
He turned slowly, reaching out to touch where her hand met cloth, trying to prove to himself that it was nothing more than cold metal. To prove that this was a hallucination born of a desperate hope to see her, and nothing more.  
  
But when his hand brushed hers-  
  
-it was warm. She stifled a gasp. _So warm…._


	3. Chapter 3

“You… you’re actually real this time…?” he mumbled.  
  
She stared into his eyes. They were so… very strange. One pupil was dilated and large, while the other was extremely small.  
  
“… am I usually _not_ real?” she wondered.  
  
“W-well…,” he began, but refused to finish. She opened her mouth to ask again, but the scratch in her throat sent her into a coughing fit.  
  
“Oh!” he gripped her shoulders and held tight. She shivered violently at the touch. "Are you okay?“  
  
She tried to answer, but just ended up coughing again.  
  
"Here, come with me,” he grabbed her hand and pulled her behind the wall panel. He directed her towards a cardboard box, and pressed down on her shoulders until she was forced to sit on it.  
  
He fumbled through the refuse on the floor, looking around for a clean mug she could use. While he was busy, she rubbed her shoulders absentmindedly.  
  
 _Why did his touch feel so good, yet so frightening all at the same time?_  
  
“Ah, here we go!” he found an unused, chipped coffee cup. “It’s not ideal, but at least it’s clean.”  
  
He poured it full to the brim with water from a large white jug and handed her the cup. He pulled up what looked like a storage cube and sat across from her. She looked the cup over.  
  
The water was clear, but… the mug. It said **FUEL** on it in huge, black letters. She almost snorted at the silliness of it.  
  
“Go on, drink. It’s clean,” he said, assuming she hadn’t drunk it yet because she was afraid.  
  
Doug reached over, grabbed the mug from her hands, and took a small sip. "See?“ he said reassuringly, and handed it back.  
  
… Chell didn’t know what to make of _that_ gesture. Reluctantly, she drank the water anyway. The liquid was cool, and it had been a long time since she’d had anything to drink. Before long she’d downed the entire glass.  
  
"There you go,” he smiled awkwardly. "Feel a little better?“  
  
She nodded.  
  
"Excellent,” he mumbled, a grin spreading across his face. He looked almost uncomfortable with smiling, like he hadn’t done so in a long time. But she realized with a start that he hadn’t taken his eyes off of her for quite a while.  
  
She took that moment to take a proper look at him. His eyes were sunken and tired-looking. His hair and beard were dark, coarse, and unkempt. Even with him wearing a heavy lab coat, she could tell that he was much too thin. His eyes… there was such a weary look in those strange, beautiful eyes.  
  
“So… what’s your name?” she asked, still a little hoarse. "I would introduce _myself_ , but you already seem to know me.“  
  
"Yes… that…,” he forced a weak laugh. "I, um… I’ve read your file, that’s all.“  
  
"… oh, that is definitely _not_ all,” she retorted. "You wouldn’t be drawing me all over the walls if that was _all_.“  
  
At this, he looked away from her. Doug didn’t know _how_ to explain the paintings. 'I’m the one who saved your life, but in doing so trapped you in a relaxation chamber like it was a coffin?‘ No. He couldn’t tell her _that_.  
  
"So, who _are_ you, exactly? I mean, I HAVE looked at your signs and paintings all this time, so it FEELS like I know you. But… I don’t actually know much about you,” she asked plainly. "I thought you’d be a test subject, but just look at you! You’re a scientist.“  
  
"Yes, I used to be a technician. I was in charge of running the Aperture Image Format, and I worked on the safety systems on the current portal gun,” he motioned towards the device in her lap. "My name is Doug Rattmann, and I was also tested, much in the way you were. God… the way you're _still_ being tested,“ he chuckled, like after so long a time it had become some kind of joke.  
  
She grimaced. He softened at the look. "… sorry, it’s not funny. It's… it’s not funny at all. I just….”  
  
“It’s okay,” she mumbled. "I think I get it. If you can’t laugh at it then there’s nothing keeping you from just giving up and lying down in front of a turret.“  
  
"… that’s a rather good point you have there,” he replied simply.  
  
There was a deep silence between them. They just stared at each other, fascinated by the sight of another human being after seemingly endless isolation. They longed to reach out and touch one another, to silently comfort, to massage away all of the aches that had plagued them these many years.  
  
“… so I know who you were _then_ , at least a little bit,” she began tentatively. "But who are you now?“  
  
"I’m,” he faltered. Tears would have begun to flow, had the hurt not been dulled over the ages. "I’m just a rat in the walls now.“  
  
She felt her heart break just a little. There were so many things she wanted to tell him. She wanted him to know she _shared_ his pain. She understood the aching loneliness, a grief that even the sting of a bullet could not compare to. She understood the weakening of ones body, the intense and unfulfilled desire to simply be _touched_ , or just to see a human face. But she couldn’t express it all. She had never been good with words.  
  
Her look said it all. He smiled weakly, eyes half-lidded. He understood exactly how she felt. He felt a sudden desire to unravel the story behind that complex look of hers.  
  
"So… then who are _you_?” he mumbled. "Like I said, I’ve read your file, but there wasn’t a whole lot of information there to begin with.“  
  
She simply shrugged. "I don’t know. This place… Aperture… it’s the only thing I know. But the strangest part is that I know certain… _other_ things. Like, I have a vague understanding of what the world is like beyond these confining walls. I know about the sun, about trees and grasses, about buildings and cities and homes and comfy beds….”  
  
 _And about the soft, warm, unendingly wonderful feeling of touching another human being,_ she added mentally.  
  
“But you still don’t know who you _are_ ,” Doug said despondently. She shook her head.  
  
“No, I don’t know who I _was_. But I know exactly who I _am_." She paused. ”… the past is over. The only thing that matters is the future.“  
  
"Wait, what about the present? What about the _now_?” he wondered.  
  
“The present connects to the future seamlessly. What we do now affects what will happen to us later. The present matters, don’t get me wrong, but it’s just a means to an end. We survive in the moment so that we can live later on,” she explained. Then, added: “… I’ve been thinking about this for a long time.”  
  
He looked at her sadly. Was that all she saw life as? Survival?  
  
 _“Of course it is. There’s nothing else in her life but the survival instinct,”_ Cube whispered knowingly.  
  
 _… but perhaps I can find a way to remind her that living things survive in order to fulfill_ another _need entirely,_ he thought.  
  
He leaned forward slowly, shakily, and placed a hand on her shoulder. She twitched and leaned imperceptibly into the touch. His hand was so warm, yet so rough… she wanted him to touch her more than just on her shoulders. Doug shook like a leaf, wanting to lean in and kiss her but fearing her wrath should she not welcome his advances. He slowly moved forward, and Chell immediately realized what was about to happen. She didn’t know how to react, but she couldn’t say she hadn’t been yearning for this moment.  
  
“Chell…,” he whispered. "I’ve waited for this… for _so long_.“  
  
He was going to do it! He really was, he was going to kiss her, after all this time-  
  
 _… no._ He couldn’t do it, and he froze. They’d just met. Kissing her now would be stupid.  
  
But she finished it for him anyway, grabbing his head by the temples and pressing her lips clumsily against his. She’d never kissed before, at least she didn't _think_ she had. And she had every reason to believe so. She had _no_ idea what she was doing.  
  
Doug let out a muffled 'eep’, startled by her forwardness. He should have _known_ this would happen. When Chell wanted something, she would stop at nothing to get it. He would have to watch out for that.  
  
He was about to forcibly tug himself away when Chell released him of her own volition.  
  
"S-sorry…,” she mumbled, licking her lips absentmindedly. He shivered. She had _no idea_ what she was doing to him. "I just didn’t want you to pull away. _I had to kiss you._ “  
  
He nodded. "Yeah… I can understand that,” he squeaked.  
  
So, what else was there to do now? It was out in the open. Chell silently cursed herself for doing that to him. He clearly had reservations about the kiss, but she just couldn’t help herself! How was she supposed to ignore the only delightful human impulse she’d had in all these years? He was here! Human, a real _by God human_ , the only warm and decent thing left in this labyrinth of cold, unfeeling metal!


	4. Chapter 4

His hands twitched. He twiddled his thumbs to keep his fingers from being idle, but there was nothing to be done. He wanted to… to… he wanted to do _something_ but he wasn’t certain what that something _was_. And he was scared of what it might lead to.  
  
After all, Doug had always been in love with her. Well, perhaps not always. For a time there had been nothing on his mind but survival. Love simply didn’t enter into the equation. He’d even checked the math.  
  
Doug knew he was too much of a coward, and much too weak, to go before the omnipotent goddess of the facility on his own. He hadn’t a chance. But he knew somebody might. His mind went back to when he’d first seen her face, a determined (and more than a little angry) look in her eyes, in the photograph in her file. Those deep, grey eyes….  
  
He found himself staring into them. Never had he dreamed he’d see them up close like this. Eye contact wasn’t something one achieved very often in his line of work. At least, not unless one had a very open-minded definition of an “eye”.  
  
The sight of her drove something in him that he thought had been starved to death years ago back to the surface of his consciousness. She was always on his mind.  
  
At first it didn’t matter how close or how far she was from him. Her face had burned itself on his memory, straight from the photograph and through his eyes where his brain had kept it protected in its purest electric form. If he felt he was forgetting how she looked, all he would have to do was paint her.  
  
After a while, the knowledge that she was awake and wandering the laboratory caused something truly alien to surface in him. He would find himself following her about, stealing fleeting glances at her as she worked. He began to wonder if she ever slept, but of course she didn’t. There was too much adrenaline in the air, and no time for sleep when there was science to be done.  
  
Eventually, those fleeting glances evolved into long stares. He would look at her for hours on end, drinking in the view. The simultaneously familiar and foreign sight of another human moving, breathing, and every so often curling up in a quiet corner to lick her wounds, was simply fascinating to him. It was then that he first yearned to be closer to her. To touch her, hold her. To clasp her hand in his would be the pinnacle of bliss for him. To feel the last of the good, pure, wonderful things left in his world, and to know that she and he….  
  
His mind trailed off, and he was jolted from reverie by the feel of her hand on his face. He felt himself grow warmer at the touch, and smiled sheepishly. He had been staring into her eyes all this time.  
  
“I’m sorry,” she repeated in a hushed tone. "Doug, I shouldn’t have kissed you.“  
  
"No,” he said, eyes still focused on her. "You absolutely _should_ have.“  
  
With that sentiment, he leaned forward again, his earlier hesitation forgotten in the moment. She was everything. She was the _only_ thing.  
  
Their lips met, awkwardly still, and he caressed her cheek with one hand as he grasped at her fingers with the other.  
  
She inhaled sharply through her nose at the contact. Her eyes slipped closed, and she focused on the roughness of his chapped lips and the scratch of his coarse beard against her chin. She clutched at his hand desperately. When was the last time she’d felt anything even remotely like a human hand? Had it been GLaDOS’s claw? It must have been.  
  
 _Human._ The most magnificent and sacred word she could conjure. It held such a powerful significance to her that, when faced with the tangible origin of the noun, she very nearly wanted to fall to the floor and weep, overwhelmed by the complex emotions this other person arose in her.  
  
She leaned heavily into the kiss, arms coiling around his neck. Doug placed one hand on the small of her back, and entwined the other in her hair.  
  
They parted, panting heavily for reasons they couldn’t quite discern.  
  
"Chell…,” Doug whispered, his hot breath against her lips causing her to whimper. "I love you. I've _always_ loved you.“  
  
"I love you, too,” she breathed, pecking him on the lips briefly to drive the point home.


	5. Chapter 5

He grinned from ear to ear, and wrapped her in the tightest hug he could.  
  
“I couldn’t be happier,” Doug chuckled, nuzzling her neck. "Clams have nothing on me.“  
  
She pulled away and quirked an eyebrow at him.  
  
"… happy as a clam? It’s a saying,” his face fell.  
  
“Hmm,” she mumbled.  
  
 _Oh. Right,_ he mentally kicked himself. She didn’t know much about the world above. There would never be any sharing of clichés between them, no quoting old movies that had long since gone out of fashion, no shared memories of pop culture or historical events. He felt just a little disheartened by that.  
  
He couldn’t think of a way to make himself feel better about the situation, but it seemed as though _Chell_ had an idea. She put her hand lightly over his. She gently rubbed the pad of her thumb over the back of his hand, as though in time with some unheard music.  
  
“I’m sorry. I don't _know_ all the things you do. But I want to learn,” she said determinedly. "And you’re the only one who can teach me.“  
  
Oh, how he wanted to kiss her again! But how many kisses in how short a time were too many?  
  
Chell didn’t seem worried about overdoing herself, and leaned in to peck him on the cheek. Her lips found his mouth shortly after, and they were at it again. This time, she tangled her fingers in his shirt and pawed faintly at his chest.  
  
His hand absentmindedly found its way to her hip-  
  
… just as she pulled away.  
  
Doug immediately took his hands off of her. He wasn’t sure what to make of it. _Stupid, stupid, stupid!_ he deliberated. _I should have_ known _that was taking things too far!_  
  
"I’m- I’m sorry, Chell. I shouldn’t have-” he began, but was cut off as Chell’s stomach growled rather noisily.  
  
… he violently suppressed a laugh.  
  
“… hungry?” he wondered.  
  
She simply glared at him. With those glassy, grey eyes….  
  
 _No! Don’t get distracted again, you have things to do!_ Cube urged.  
  
“I have some extra food if you like. I’ll cook you something,” he tried to ignore her angry look, but his voice audibly cracked with mixed fear and disappointment.  
  
He turned his attentions towards his food stores to keep his mind off of what had just transpired. He pulled up a modified hard drive and flipped a switch, activating the heat sink. While he waited for that to get warmed up, he picked out two unopened cans of beans from a stock of them he’d set aside. It was a good thing he liked beans; they were the only nonperishable food he could find in this godforsaken place. Luckily they were high in protein, which kept his energy up, and Vitamin C, which kept him from getting sick. But he knew he couldn’t survive on them for too much longer…. He was already malnourished and he honestly didn’t know how long he’d been subsisting on beans alone.  
  
To be honest, in this place days tended to bleed into another. Time became a constant fact rather than something that could be marked by durations. Having lived here for so long, he finally saw time for what it was: a permanent, never-ending flow. All of humanity’s attempts to count it with seconds and hours and years were completely meaningless. The amounts of time involved in these measurements were arbitrary. Time slipped by you, invisible, but always drawing you nearer and nearer to the inevitable end. It was your job as a living thing to fight against it as long as you could, because you were programmed to. It’s simple biology: the longer a thing survives, the more chances it has to reproduce.  
  
He very nearly hit himself. _Stop thinking about reproduction already!_  
  
  
Why was he thinking about that, anyway? He _needed_ to focus on what he was doing. Doug removed a rusted can opener from the pocket of his lab coat (it was a good thing he’d come across it, but the damnable thing had a tendency to break more and more frequently) and set to work opening two of the cans. One he set over the makeshift hard drive stove, and the other he decided was his, and would cook second. Unfortunately, Doug remembered a small problem. He’d only ever grabbed one spoon for himself, and didn’t especially feel like giving it to Chell. Not for his own sake (he would be quite happy eating off a spoon that had once been in her mouth) but because he didn’t want to deceive her into thinking it was a perfectly clean utensil.   
  
He decided to tell the truth.  
  
“Um, I’m not going to lie to you, Chell. I’ve only got one spoon, and I’ve kind of used it already. Quite frankly I can’t think of anything else you can eat this with,” he turned around slightly to inform her.  
  
She thought about that for a moment. Then, tentatively, she replied. "So basically I either have to eat hot, rather messy food with my hands, or share a utensil with you,“ he cringed at her bluntness. "… well, seeing as we’ve been swapping spit practically since we met, I don’t see much of a problem with the second option.”  
  
He felt his face flush at this. As soon as he decided the can was warmed enough, he carefully removed it from the makeshift stove and replaced it with the second can.  
  
Chell, her nose once again filling with the mouth-watering scent of food, left her seat on the cardboard box and crept over to him. She eyed the can hungrily, not wanting to wait any longer for it to cool or for the second tin of beans to cook through. She tapped Doug’s shoulder.  
  
“… I’d like that spoon now, if you please,” she asked politely.  
  
He was a little startled by the sudden request, but suspected that she was really just hungry after all this time having not eaten. He reached into his coat pocket and retrieved the utensil, thoroughly wiping it as clean as he could with the hem of his shirt. "Okay,“ he smiled nervously, handing it to her. "Go on ahead, don’t wait on my account.”  
  
She took the metal in her hands, dipping it slowly into the warm, offered food. She gingerly lifted a mound of it to her lips, blowing the steam off of it. Doug watched intently. He couldn’t take his eyes off of her lips- the way they pursed as she breathed cool air onto her food. The way she did _everything_ was so calculated and tender, it was almost intoxicating.  
  
Chell slipped the gooey mess into her mouth, sucking it off the bowl of the spoon, savoring the flavor and licking every last bit of it off the metal. She dipped in again, this time taking longer to cool it, and then offered the spoonful to Doug. He blinked, confused at what she wanted him to do.  
  
“Go on, we’ll share it,” she urged.  
  
He could feel all the intelligent thought drain from his mind.   
  
“Th-that- um-” he stumbled over the words.  
  
She forcibly occupied his mouth, which was currently flopping open and closed like that of a dying fish, with the spoonful of beans.


	6. Chapter 6

They ate together that way, one spoonful for him and the next for her. Doug didn’t know if he liked the idea of being fed like a child, particularly by someone who was at least five years younger than he. Eventually he just went with it; the whole ordeal was certainly no less insane than anything else in this place.  
  
At first, Doug promised himself that he would just allow her to eat the second helping of beans herself. He hadn’t suffered the unending hunger that she had (or at least he wasn’t experiencing it right now- he had had enough food in the past few months to keep him sated). However, Chell was adamant, and continued to eat the same way. He tried to refuse at one point, but he should have known better than to go against her. She was stubborn, but gentle, in denying his refusal, doing so with a kind smile on her lips.  
  
Finally finished, Doug’s head was reeling from the sheer oddity of what had just occurred. Was it meant to be an act of kindness? Communion? Or was she simply exerting her power over him, showing him physically that she was the one in control here, and he was akin to a mere child? He opted for the theory of communion; eating wasn’t something Chell got to do often, so if she shared that experience with him, it would be a deeply significant gesture. He was a little more pleased with that hypothesis than he probably should have been.  
  
“Feel better now?” he asked. She was still scraping at the inside of the second can with the spoon, trying to get as much juice out as she could. She glanced at him and nodded.  
  
He wanted to offer her a place to sleep, and it was well within his resources to do so, but he feared she had no interest in rest. Over the years he had built up a tolerance to the adrenal vapor in the air, but she hadn’t been conscious long enough to have developed the same resistance.  
  
“… would you like to sleep?” he wondered kindly. If nothing else, it would be polite to offer.  
  
She looked at him curiously, setting down the spoon and empty can. "Not really,“ she muttered.  
  
Well, that officially exhausted his list of possible activities. They ate, they had already spoken with one another at length, and he didn’t feel much like drawing with somebody watching him.  
  
He heaved himself into a standing position and returned to his previous seat at the back of the den. She joined him, returning to her cardboard box. He reached down absentmindedly and patted the cube beneath him.  
  
"Wait… what’s that you’re sitting on?” she asked.  
  
He glanced at her, smiling. "This is Cube. She’s my… er… companion.“  
  
"Yes, but how in the world did you manage to get it out of the test chamber? I was sort of led to believe that you… y'know… destroyed it,” she said.  
  
He didn’t meet her gaze. "I incinerated the first one out of necessity. Once you do that, there’s a glitch in the system. The pneumatic tube dispenses a replacement whenever a cube is destroyed, regardless of whether or not that destruction is part of the test. After I escaped the test circuit, I returned to the chamber through the maintenance shaft and retrieved the replacement cube. It’s not the same, and going back there alerted GLaDOS to my position. She gave me trouble for months after that before she finally relinquished and gave me up for dead,“ he chuckled that wry little laugh again. "But I think it was worth it.”  
  
A moment of silence hung in the air, as Chell began to form her next sentence. This was a question she would have to ask very carefully- she couldn’t be too blunt, or she’d risk offending him. But she couldn’t be too vague either, or he might not understand her intentions. Finally, she settled on the subtle approach.  
  
“Are you alright?” she asked. He looked up at her with a cold stare, as though he was either unsure of his emotions or unable to express them properly.  
  
“No, Chell. I’m not alright. But I manage,” he said quietly.  
  
She pondered this next part. She was certain that the content of his reply would change everything between them, be it for the best or the worst.  
  
“… I’ve gone a little mad in here, too,” she said tentatively.  
  
His eyes went wide and glassy. At first she was hopeful that he’d taken it well, but then he opened his mouth to speak. "Not like I have.“  
  
She floundered, throat constricting, her lips and tongue desperately clamoring to produce something, _anything_ intelligent. The realization wasn’t easy to take- she had already questioned Doug’s mental stability, but considering everything she’d been through, everything _he_ had been through….  
  
Her psyche was clearly a lot stronger than his, and he had been here a great deal longer than she had ever been. GLaDOS had been given every opportunity to break him emotionally, mentally, and physically. He must have wandered around all alone down here in this dank place, surrounded by cold walls on all sides, machinery whirring and pounding whenever he attempted to sleep, trying to make for himself some kind of home in a place that was never meant for human habitation… the thought made her want to hold him forever, to remind him of how wonderful human contact was, even if she herself couldn’t quite recall what it felt like.  
  
She leaned over and wrapped her arms around him. There was no need for words now. It was okay now. They were together. The last two human beings, the only to survive in this prison of concrete, puzzles, and steel, were finally together. He leaned into the touch, daring shakily to place a hand on her arm.  
  
She kissed him tenderly, stealthily placing one hand on his thigh. He flinched, unsure of her intentions, but took it as a go-ahead and grabbed her hip with his free hand. She didn’t stop him this time.  
  
Chell could feel her heart beating in her groin, unable to contain itself any longer. She literally ached; there was something needy in her that threatened to burst if it wasn’t rubbed and assuaged, and soon. Doug, meanwhile, tried desperately to contain himself. He didn’t want to get a hard-on and risk ruining this fragile moment. He didn’t want to frighten her off just because all of this unfamiliar human contact was causing his stupid body to assume he was close to making love. Of course, he _wanted_ to make love to her, but now was not the time, and today was not the day.  
  
Then again, Chell seemed to have her own opinion on what was appropriate.  
  
Her hand migrated towards the hem of his pants, tucking her fingers into the elastic denim. He seized up, frightened and excited at the possible intent behind this action. She smirked, tugging at the fabric, exposing a coarse trail of hair-  
  
-as he shoved her hand away. She looked at him dejectedly, her expression verging on anger.  
  
”… I can’t,“ his voice cracked. He wanted to… the erection straining against his white jeans was certainly proof enough of that. But he simply couldn’t. "I don’t want to get you pregnant.”  
  
He didn’t have the heart, or the willpower for that matter, to stop her should she continue in spite of his misgivings. He had a sinking feeling that he would never be able to defy her wishes. When Chell set her mind on something, she didn’t quit until she got what she wanted.  
  
Relief washed over him as she removed her hand.  
  
“Isn’t there… something we can do about that?” she asked.  
  
“I don’t see what,” Doug sighed. "It’s not like I’ve got any protection.“  
  
Doug desired nothing more than to tug the elastic from her hair and run his fingers through her scalp. To cradle her in his arms, pressed down against his makeshift bed. Her lithe, curvy body lying heavily across his. Running their fingers along every inch of the other’s skin. Pressing inside her hot, slippery depths… feeling and massaging the deepest, most sensitive parts of her. He conjured the thought of her riding him, violent yet somehow gentle. His inhibitions and doubts, every horrible feeling he’d ever had, every last seething drop of guilt, being pushed away by the slickness and the heat, the panting and the sounds of pleasure. Every drop of sweat that rolled down her skin would make her glisten. Explosions of pleasure, clenching around him, two bodies wracked with powerful contractions, at once the same with the pleasure, with the universe, and with one another. Oh, what he wouldn't _give_ for a fresh condom!  
  
 _"You don’t have to forego this, Doug,”_ Cube piped up. _“The medical wing isn’t far from here. You can even get there safely. You can_ fuck _her, Doug. You can finally have your cake and eat it, too.”_  
  
Chell could see something light up in him. It was exhilarating and terrifying, like something he hadn’t thought of had suddenly sparked up in his memory. And he clearly wasn’t quite sure how to feel about the resurgence of that thought.  
  
“… I could find one. A condom, I mean. A fresh one, too. It wouldn’t take me more than a few minutes,” Doug said softly, but not kindly. His face and speech were monotone; for some reason he wasn’t giving off any expression. She felt a chill at the cold, unfeeling gaze he was casting at the floor. He glanced up at her, simultaneously frightened and yearning. "What do you want to do?“  
  
She didn’t miss a beat.  
  
"Be back quickly,” she urged.  
  
He staggered awkwardly to the corner. He shoved aside a stack of rotting cardboard that had been propped up against a wall, revealing a door with a power lock. He swiftly punched in four digits- he still knew them by heart- and shuffled into the darkness beyond.


End file.
